"If all of mankind minus one, were of one opinion, and only one person were of the contrary opinion, mankind would be no more justified in silencing that one person, than he, if he had the power, would be justified in silencing mankind."
-John Stuart Mill, On Liberty, 1869

Currently I am reading Al Franken's book "Lies And the Lying Liars Who Tell Them." The paperback edition. I'm also reading Ann Coulter's book "Slander." The hardback edition. The more that I read political books, the more that I think that both sides have got it wrong.

In both of these books, the author will accuse the other "side" or making a statement that is distorted. Or misleading. Or that was just pulled out of someone's ass. Each author criticizes the other for name calling. IE: "Such and such part/person/idea is stupid". Well, guess what. You both do it. So does everyone else. We all get flustered when we get angry and our logic goes out the window and we resort to the third-grade-out-on-the-playground mentality. So, we have established that everyone at sometime call someone else some variety of "stupid." This means that we can move away from calling each other on it and get to some real issues.

In this Web Log I will try to make sure that I don't lapse into name calling. I will try not to call anyone stupid. I may refer to their actions as being stupid, but I will try to refrain from ad hominem attacks.

That being said, I think that more people need to explore all the regions of politics today. For example, a good place to see a lot of interesting, and at sometimes inflammatory, debate is over at Politics.com. This site has a lot of people who post with various backgrounds and various views. You can probably find a thread on just about anything that you like. I urge you to give it a look, because it means that at least you are trying to expose yourself to other viewpoints. I highly encourage everyone to debate. Even if it means taking the opposite side of what you believe. But the most important thing is for you to get involved.

Unfortunately I have never been good at keeping a journal. I never was able to keep up with it and anytime that I did write entries was usually when I depressed about something. Later, I would go back and read the entries and think that I was a complete and utter moron. Such is the way of maturity, I guess. We see ourselves now as compared to then and we realize that it wasn't so bad. At least now we are able to put it into perspective. This blog, and I utterly hate that word, is going to be me trying to put the world around me into perspective. This Web Log will be mostly politically oriented, but I will also try to write about the world that I see. I don't care what you think about me or my politics. I didn't make you come here. But since you are here, I want to entertain you and hopefully inform you. If you want advice, then here it is: